The mood in here

Dependencies without sub-tasks?

How do I identify a task as dependent on another without making it a sub-task? Just like in MS Project, you can make one task dependent upon another task without making it a sub-task. I have several milestones that are dependent upon another task/milestone finishing, but they are not sub-tasks, they are their own milestones.

This is a deal breaker for me too. I was so excited to find your product until I discovered this. 5PM team doesn't seem to understand the difference between dependency and sub-tasks (parent/child relationship).

Dependency means that task A must be completed before task B can start.

Parent tasks are just 'summary' tasks of the children - information about the children should 'roll up' to the parent. For example, the parent task can't end until the last child task ends.

Also, on your timeline view, the parent tasks should unfold to reveal the child tasks. Otherwise, timeline view is useless.

To me this is a deal breaker.
I can't for example say that "development task" will start only after "wireframing task" without making "development" a sub task of "wireframing" which is a nonsense.
Furthermore I can't group related task in a more global one which makes it difficult to organize projects with lots of tasks.
So sad because I really like this application otherwise...

I am in the same boat evaluating. I love this system and was ready to subscribe and move all our projects from a competitor, but task predecessors is not true to project management.

This would not be a big issue for us, but right now I do not see a way to only show tasks that have the parent competed in the "My Stuff" view. It shows all my tasks even though they are not ready to be worked on yet by me. That is a deal killer for us...

For what it's worth, I was evaluating 5PM for use in our company until I realized that 5PM doesn't really support task dependencies. Sub-tasks and task dependency are completely different things; it is misleading to call them the same thing just because the software doesn't truly support task dependency (or sub-tasks for that matter).

In the timeline view, your sub-tasks don't appear to be sub-tasks at all, but rather a list of tasks that have a simple lead or lag dependency. If I have to MAKE a cake, my sub-tasks might be (1) PUT ingredients in a bowl (2) STIR (3) POUR into cake pan (4) BAKE. If I attempted to put this together in 5PM then POUR has to be a sub-task of STIR. That just doesn't make any sense as all steps are children of MAKE. You might say that I could make all four tasks to be sub-tasks of MAKE, then adjust start times in the timeline view such that PUT, STIR, POUR, and BAKE all occur chronologically in the view, but then I have just defeated the purpose of task dependency because I had to do that all manually. If STIR ends up taking me longer to complete, POUR, and BAKE need to be delayed; I would have to do this manually in your tool.

Addition of true task dependency (e.g. the simplest case being between multiple sub-tasks of a parent task) and properly representing sub-tasks in the timeline view will differentiate 5PM from the myriad of project management tools out there that claim to save time etc. but don't.

Once you get around to this, it will be much less confusing to present child tasks in the timeline view by allowing the user to collapse/expand parent tasks to show/hide child tasks.

For a good example of a project management tool that implements scheduling very well, look at project.net. If you could emulate the same or similar behavior, I would be an instant convert.

Dear pm5 team. We are a 40 people company (www.ikid.gr) handling around 300 projects per year. We are a special education institute(speech therapy, occupational therapy. etc) and our projects are the children that we provide our care! We are evaluating your system since we need to work with a lot of predefined tasks and handrunds of subtasks and sub-subtasks. That is why we chose initialy your system. We have created a template profile(with tasks and subtasks) that includes every possible need of a child and every time a new patient comes we clone the template and delete the task categories that are not needed. 2 PROBLEMS: 1. There is no easy-fast way to delete big list of subtasks. For that reason we have to delete one by one around 100 subtasks every time. As a matter of fact I believe that, naturally, if we choose to delete a subtask, all the sub-subta sks under this task will have to be deleted as well! !Don't you agree? 2. In the same way, when all sub-subtasks of a task are 100% completed then the task has to be automatically marked as completed too. Or when a task is marked as completed then this means that all its subtasks have to be automatically marked as completed too! Eitherway, if one of these issues could be solved (maybe just adding a "Mark all completed" buttom for example), all our team will be happy to use your service gradually. Thanks in advance for your consideration Dimitris Nikolopoulos ikid CEO

Am I wrong to think that you can have a task dependent upon another task but is not a sub-task? I can think of many unrelated items that are dependent upon completion that are not a sub-task of the other. Is this something that you can consider adding in as this is basic functionality of MS project.

As I mentioned, it's all one feature in 5pm. Dependent task or sub-task - you just add it the same. We don't force any restrictions, besides that the sub-task/dependent task can not start before the parent one. That's all. How it is visually represented - is just a matter of preference.

This is common project management practice, not MS Project, so you are not copying anything, just providing a needed method for your clients. Please listen to what your customers are saying regarding how they need to use it.

+1. A project Dependency and a Project Sub Task are completely different items. Example: Sitting at my desk is not a sub-task of driving to work, but driving to work is definitely a predecessor to sitting at my desk and must complete first. This makes one think, if such a simple request get's static from the admin's, what about the more complicated ones?

Splitting those two concepts will actually make the software more complex, so it is not a simple request.

We get many suggestions (and treat them as such) - many features have been added and are added to 5pm over years, including task-dependecies /sub-tasks (those were not supported in original version of 5pm).

Ok, it just looks like when I make it a sub-task that one is a parent of the other, which it is definitely not. So there is no way to make a dependency without making one the parent? I guess I will update all the tasks manually then.

Dear pm5 team. We are a 40 people company (www.ikid.gr) handling around 300 projects per year. We are a special education institute(speech therapy, occupational therapy. etc) and our projects are the children that we provide our care! We are evaluating your system since we need to work with a lot of predefined tasks and handrunds of subtasks and sub-subtasks. That is why we chose initialy your system. We have created a template profile(with tasks and subtasks) that includes every possible need of a child and every time a new patient comes we clone the template and delete the task categories that are not needed. 2 PROBLEMS: 1. There is no easy-fast way to delete big list of subtasks. For that reason we have to delete one by one around 100 subtasks every time. As a matter of fact I believe that, naturally, if we choose to delete a subtask, all the sub-subta sks under this task will have to be deleted as well! !Don't you agree? 2. In the same way, when all sub-subtasks of a task are 100% completed then the task has to be automatically marked as completed too. Or when a task is marked as completed then this means that all its subtasks have to be automatically marked as completed too! Eitherway, if one of these issues could be solved (maybe just adding a "Mark all completed" buttom for example), all our team will be happy to use your service gradually. Thanks in advance for your consideration Dimitris Nikolopoulos ikid CEO

For what it's worth, I was evaluating 5PM for use in our company until I realized that 5PM doesn't really support task dependencies. Sub-tasks and task dependency are completely different things; it is misleading to call them the same thing just because the software doesn't truly support task dependency (or sub-tasks for that matter).

In the timeline view, your sub-tasks don't appear to be sub-tasks at all, but rather a list of tasks that have a simple lead or lag dependency. If I have to MAKE a cake, my sub-tasks might be (1) PUT ingredients in a bowl (2) STIR (3) POUR into cake pan (4) BAKE. If I attempted to put this together in 5PM then POUR has to be a sub-task of STIR. That just doesn't make any sense as all steps are children of MAKE. You might say that I could make all four tasks to be sub-tasks of MAKE, then adjust start times in the timeline view such that PUT, STIR, POUR, and BAKE all occur chronologically in the view, but then I have just defeated the purpose of task dependency because I had to do that all manually. If STIR ends up taking me longer to complete, POUR, and BAKE need to be delayed; I would have to do this manually in your tool.

Addition of true task dependency (e.g. the simplest case being between multiple sub-tasks of a parent task) and properly representing sub-tasks in the timeline view will differentiate 5PM from the myriad of project management tools out there that claim to save time etc. but don't.

Once you get around to this, it will be much less confusing to present child tasks in the timeline view by allowing the user to collapse/expand parent tasks to show/hide child tasks.

For a good example of a project management tool that implements scheduling very well, look at project.net. If you could emulate the same or similar behavior, I would be an instant convert.

I agree with the concerns about tasks and subtasks, dependencies, etc. You cannot really schedule a project unless you have full control over dependencies: FS, SS, FF, and the dreaded SF. You also need lead and lag control.

I was going to try this product out, but now that I see that dependency control is not really there---I'll not bother.

I am in the same boat evaluating. I love this system and was ready to subscribe and move all our projects from a competitor, but task predecessors is not true to project management.

This would not be a big issue for us, but right now I do not see a way to only show tasks that have the parent competed in the "My Stuff" view. It shows all my tasks even though they are not ready to be worked on yet by me. That is a deal killer for us...

I'm in the same boat on the dependency issue. It doesn't even seem to handle dependencies correctly at the most basic level, i.e. start dates of dependent tasks should be driven by the parent task's start date and estimated completion time.

This unfortunately is a deal killer as well, which is unfortunate because this system seemed so close to matching what we needed.

If you needed more input to the dependencies issue, I agree with the past comments. And the restriction of not starting before the parent is way too sloppy for proper project management IMHO
Having given up on MS Project years ago and not having found an alternative I am faced with a horrible decision - made worse by the fact I really want a web-based solution for collaboration and out-of-office access.

To me this is a deal breaker.
I can't for example say that "development task" will start only after "wireframing task" without making "development" a sub task of "wireframing" which is a nonsense.
Furthermore I can't group related task in a more global one which makes it difficult to organize projects with lots of tasks.
So sad because I really like this application otherwise...

This is a deal breaker for me too. I was so excited to find your product until I discovered this. 5PM team doesn't seem to understand the difference between dependency and sub-tasks (parent/child relationship).

Dependency means that task A must be completed before task B can start.

Parent tasks are just 'summary' tasks of the children - information about the children should 'roll up' to the parent. For example, the parent task can't end until the last child task ends.

Also, on your timeline view, the parent tasks should unfold to reveal the child tasks. Otherwise, timeline view is useless.

Dependent tasks DO move when the parent task or its deadline moves. Basically the start dates of dependent tasks are linked to the end date of the parent task - you can see it easily while dragging tasks in Timeline.

it all seems to work fine as long as there always is only one dependency. however, it is very important that more than one parent task will be supported in the future. how can i manage a manufacturing process where there are more than one necessary predecessors?
also when making a sub task, its start date should not be allowed to be before the end date of the parent, or at least per default be set to the end date of the parent task, so it does not have to be done manually.

There are many types of dependencies - with lag time, mandatory, etc.
We basically allow any kind of dependency, including a non-mandatory one - where the sub-task starts before the parent task ends. This offers more flexibility to accommodate a wide range of dependencies.

I don't mean to be harsh to the -responsive- 5pm team and this is strictly my personal opion (after reviewing the product in november 2012, providing feedback and getting some answers) but honestly sergej if you need a real world workable gantt chart I strongly suggest you look for something else than 5pm (which is sad because I really think it's a great product in other areas).
There is a lot of feedback about gantt issues and I feel like instead of taking them into account it's always something like "It's done like that because it's the best way"... Well if we, potential customers, say it's a problem for us maybe it's not the best way...

It did address some of the issue mentioned to us in the past: a much better printing option (we had many complains about the old Timeline printing option), a side-panel with project/task names (so they are always visible). Plus we ironed out some past bugs and improved the speed.

As about different opinions on different ways it should work: do not allow the dependent task to start before the parent task ends, do not shift the dependent tasks when parent task moves, etc - those can vary from one user to another. While many agree that dependent tasks do need to shift - we still get many requests to prohibit that, for example.

While we try to keep it universal, we can not cover all the cases. As Julien mentioned - other solutions work in different ways.

While we are trying to listen to all feedback and are improving the product (as with recent new release of Timeline) there is always room for improvement and ways to do it differently.

Right I can't speak for the new timeline.
The issues that stopped me before this update were :
- This very one thread, task dependencies without sub-task. I really don't see any "logic" behind this limitation (see my reply 6 month ago above).
- The tasks in the timeline were not in the same order as in the project (got the reply that it was sorted by start date as in "Gantt charts"...)
- I couldn't reorder the tasks directly in the timeline

to have really dependent tasks would give so much more value to the whole 5pm. it is an ok tool for managing some tasks and projects, but to really plan something or manage production from beginning to end, dependencies are a must. for example one of my task really is dependent on 3 predecessors, and my task deadline MUST move, if any of those predecessors gets delayed, otherwise I end up with a bunch of red tasks, which I start to ignore, because it is happening more often than not.

somehow I feel, that only changes which are easily made are actually implemented and changes which need a bigger effort, like task dependencies or recurring tasks get ignored.